Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Calico Hard Hat

The whole working in a construction zone thing continues to be a wonderous and varied experience. I am pleased to report that this is the first day since being in this building that my fingers are finger-colored rather than blue. How can this possibly be true, you ask? Simple. I was so embarrassingly bitchy in the staff meeting on Monday (Staff shares a hearty chuckle about our shared plight in sub zero temperatures; I interrupt saying "Yeah. No. It's actually not funny. At all. I have spent the day wrapped in a blanket. Not okay.")that they have run 600 feet of extention cord to some viable power source such that I can be provided with a space heater. Positive reinforcement of bad behavior. Bolstered by these immediate favorable results, there's no telling what I'll ask for next.

Meanwhile, anywhere beyond my office door continues to be a frosty wasteland where my more polite/stoic colleagues scuttle around clad in various down-filled outerwear. There are plenty of ladders and exposed electrical cords. There's a half-finished bathroom. There are boarded-up windows.

Yet, among all these things, the one that makes me feel most abandonned is perhaps the jug of water that sits alone on a table in the hallway. It is one of those large containers that is meant to be turned upside down on a water cooler--that center of office life. Of course, we don't actually have a water cooler. Therefore, our water jug sits upright and has been fitted with a spout and a pump. To use this is to instantly evoke Little House on the Prairie. I can't shake the feeling that Pa has just sent me out back to fetch a pail of water for Ma.